(Image – Left to right: Frances Disley, Blaze, 2016; Hato with Childwall Academy, Hello Future Me, 2016;

Ana Jotta, Mrs. Muir, 2016. Liverpool Biennial in partnership with Arriva. Photo: Niall Lea)

The British Council in Ukraine and Liverpool Biennial are delighted to launch the second

iteration of SWAP: UK/Ukraine Artist Residency Programme in collaboration with Ukrainian

partners: Mystetskyi Arsenal, Izolyatsia. Platform for Cultural Initiatives, Soshenko 33 Art

Studios, YermilovCentre, Kharkiv Municipal Art Gallery; and Liverpool partners: Bluecoat, FACT

and Open Eye Gallery.

The SWAP residency programme aims to connect artists from Ukraine and the UK and support

their professional development and internationalisation. As in its first year, the programme is

also designed to give artists the time to research, reflect and explore the UK and Ukraine’s vast

artistic traditions.

In this second year, we are looking for:

a) 4 Ukraine-based artists looking to spend up to 45 days in a Liverpool-based residency

curated by the Liverpool Biennial team in September – October 2017;

b) 4 UK-based artists looking to spend up to 45 days in one of the residency programmes

hosted by our partners in Ukraine (Kyiv and Kharkiv) in August – September (Kharkiv) and

September – October 2017 (Kyiv).

1. UK Residencies (for Ukraine-based artists)

This year the residency offers artists the freedom to develop their practice within the vibrant art

scene of Liverpool. We are inviting 4 Ukraine-based artists who are particularly interested in

building relationships with the local artistic community and we are offering them mentorship

support delivered by Liverpool Biennial in collaboration with their partners Bluecoat,

FACT and Open Eye Gallery.

Artists will be provided with travel, accommodation, a studio, per diems and a stipend for

research. The selection panel is looking for ground-breaking artists whose practice

complements the ethos of Liverpool Biennial – to broaden and deepen engagement with

contemporary art. The residencies will last from September – October 2017.

About Liverpool Biennial

Liverpool Biennial is the UK biennial of contemporary art and commissions artists to make and

present work in the context of Liverpool. It takes place every two years across the city in public

spaces, galleries, museums and online. The Biennial is underpinned by a programme of

research, education, residencies and commissions. Founded in 1998, Liverpool Biennial has

commissioned over 300 new artworks and presented work by over 450 artists from around the

world.

The 10th edition Beautiful world, where are you? invites artists and audiences to reflect on a

world of social, political and economic turmoil. Liverpool Biennial 2018 takes place from 14 July

– 28 October and will celebrate 20 years of presenting international art in the city and region.

About the Liverpool Partners (UK)

Bluecoat

Bluecoat is Liverpool’s centre for the contemporary arts, supporting and presenting visual art,

music, dance, live art and literature, as well as practices that fall in between these categories.

In the past few years its gallery programme has shown some of the best UK and international

artists, with significant solo shows by William Kentridge, Niamh O’Malley and Keith Piper,

collaborations on large touring shows with artist/curators Mark Leckey and Common Culture,

and exhibitions presenting emerging artists such as Bloomberg New Contemporaries and solo

projects with, amongst others, Melissa Gordon and Adham Faramawy. At the same time

Bluecoat engages with audiences from the most vulnerable communities, from those with

dementia to families facing disadvantage, through its participation programme. With artists

central to these, the results are presented in occasional exhibitions alongside our gallery

programme.

Bluecoat celebrates its 300th anniversary throughout 2017, with over 300 days of special

programming running from 4th February to 30th November.

FACT

FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) is the UK’s leading media arts centre,

based in Liverpool, focusing on bringing people, art and technology together. FACT’s award-

winning building houses three galleries, a café, bar and four cinema screens. Since the

organisation was founded in 1988 (previously called Moviola), it has commissioned and

presented over 350 new media and digital artworks from artists including Pipilotti Rist, Nam

June Paik, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Isaac

Julien.

Open Eye Gallery

Open Eye Gallery, founded in 1977, is an independent, not-for-profit photography gallery based

in Liverpool. One of the UK’s leading photography spaces, it is the only gallery dedicated to

photography and related media in the North West of England. In 2017 Open Eye Gallery

celebrates its 40th year, with a wide-reaching programme of exhibitions and events. As

photographs increasingly become more of an essential tool for everyday communication, Open

Eye Gallery champions photography as an art form that is relevant to everyone. It promotes the

practice, enjoyment and understanding of photography by creating challenging and entertaining

opportunities to experience distinctive, innovative photographs.

2. Ukraine Residencies (for UK-based artists)

In Ukraine we continue to engage with the most innovative and experimental visual arts’

initiatives across the country. This year we’re offering one place in each of the following 4

residencies:

1) Kharkiv: YermilovCentre (August-September 2017)

https://www.facebook.com/YermilovCentre/

http://yermilovcentre.org/

2) Kharkiv: Kharkiv’s Municipal Art Gallery (August-September 2017)

http://mgallery.kharkov.ua/

http://nonstopmedia.org/

3) Kyiv: Soshenko 33 Art Studios (September-October 2017)

https://www.facebook.com/soshenko33/

http://soshenko33.tumblr.com/

4) Kyiv: Izolyatsia. Platform for Cultural Initiatives. (September-October 2017)

https://izolyatsia.org/en/

https://www.facebook.com/IZOLYATSIA/

You can find more information about these programmes at the end of this document.

An exhibition showcasing the results of the residencies will take place in 2017-2018 in Small

Gallery of Mystetskyi Arsenal (Kyiv).

We are looking for ground-breaking UK-resident artists interested in immersing themselves into

an overseas visual arts’ community to learn, share and collaborate. Artists will be provided with

travel, accommodation, a studio, per diems and a stipend for production/research.

Timeline (for UK and Ukrainian residencies)

Open Call: 30 May 2017

Deadline for Applications: 30 June 2017

Selection announced: 10 July 2017

Residencies begin: mid-August (Kharkiv) and 1 September (for all others, as per above) 2017.

Eligibility

1) The opportunity is open to all UK residents (for residencies in Ukraine) and Ukraine-

based artists (for residencies in Liverpool)

2) Applicants must be professional artists and/or last year-university students of an arts’

degree.

3) All applications should be submitted in English, and all applicants should treat English as

a working language for the programme

4) Overnight guests, spouses, children and pets are not permitted to stay in housing during

the residency.

Facilities & Services:

1) Visas: we will cover the costs and support of the application if needed (UK and EU

passport holders don’t need a visa to enter Ukraine for up to 90 days).

2) Housing: A private bedroom with a shared bathroom and access to a kitchen will be

provided.

3) Meals: are not included as they are covered by the stipend given to each artists (£1125

for 45 days).

4) Computer/internet access: Wi-fi internet is available in all studios/housing, but please

bring your own laptop.

5) There will be a local host (who speaks English) in each of the residence locations who

will look after you during the 45 days of the residency. There will also be a British

Council Ukraine Programme Manager who will be in touch with you regularly and will

visit all artists during their residencies. They will be your main point of contact in case of

any problem or emergency.

6) Insurance: Successful participants will need to arrange their own travel medical

insurance.

Stipend

1) Stipend: £1125 for 45 days. All artists will be awarded a stipend to cover meals and

other personal costs.

2) International travel, domestic travel from Kyiv/London to the residency and back,

housing, studio space are covered directly by the residency programme.

3) Materials’ stipend (£500) will also be provided to buy materials for participants’ work.

Application Requirements

Please send the following to swap.uk.ukraine@gmail.com before 30 June 2017:

1) CV: maximum 2 pages (.pdf only), highlighting professional experience and previous

exhibitions. Please insert as well your date of birth and passport number and its expiry

date.

2) Artworks: maximum 10 images each with title and date, or links to videos (on

YouTube/Vimeo) compiled in one .pdf file (3MB size maximum). Please use pdf

compression.

3) Cover/motivation letter: 500 words describing your practice and how it fits with the

residency opportunities. Explain your interest in Ukraine/Liverpool, and indicate which

programme you’d like to take part in. UK applicants should also score each of the

four Ukrainian residence opportunities (1 for most desirable, 4 for least desirable).

Kharkiv: YermilovCentre (August – September 2017)

Kharkiv: Kharkiv’s Municipal Art Gallery (August – September 2017)

Kyiv: Soshenko 33 Art Studios (September – October 2017)

Kyiv: Izolyatsia. Platform for Cultural Initiatives. (September – October 2017)

● By submitting an application, you accept the use (by the British Council, Liverpool

Biennial and the host partners in Ukraine) of your application’s statement (or part of it)

and/or images in promotional material related to the programme. For images, please

include all appropriate photographic credits and make sure all rights are cleared.

● Please ensure that the overall size of your application doesn’t exceed 10MB – if it does,

please upload it to a trusted cloud service (google drive, dropbox, onedrive, etc.) and

send the shared link in the application letter. Applications on cloud services should not

exceed 25MB.

● All applications must be submitted in English and in /pdf files only – rar/zip files will not

be accepted.

Note on security (Ukraine)

The security situation in the southern parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in the east of

Ukraine, remains tense with on-going clashes between Ukrainian armed forces and Russian-

backed armed separatists, despite a ceasefire. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)

advises against all travel to Crimea and to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and British

Council staff and/or visitors cannot travel there. However, there are no FCO travel bans in

place in relation to any of the locations identified for these residencies. Should this

change between now and the summer, we will identify alternative locations. While in Ukraine,

our Programme Manager in Visual Arts will be your main point of contact for any issues relating

to the programme and to wider security matters.

For more information about the situation in Ukraine please visit https://www.gov.uk/foreigntravel-

advice/ukraine

Selection Process

The British Council in Ukraine, Liverpool Biennial and their partners are looking for ground-

breaking artists interested in immersing themselves into an overseas visual arts’ community to

learn, share and collaborate. Artists will be expected to give a presentation on their stay in the

residency and produce at least one piece by the end of the residency which the British

Council will exhibit in Kyiv in 2017-2018 (as part of an annual exhibition in Small Gallery

of Mystetskyi Arsenal (Kyiv) to show the results of this programme). Liverpool Biennial

and the British Council takes no responsibility to retain or arrange shipment of art pieces after

the residency period.

If you would like to participate in SWAP, please send your application to

swap.uk.ukraine@gmail.com before 30 June 2017. Due to the high degree of interest, we

regret we cannot respond to each email.

About the residencies (Ukraine)

1) YermilovCentre (Kharkiv)

YermilovCentre is the first contemporary art space in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city and

former capital. The Centre aims to promote contemporary visual arts in the region, stimulating

dialogue and exchange between artists. The Centre runs a big exhibition space, part of the N.

Karazin Kharkiv National University, which has an active annual programme showcasing the

best of new local and national talent. The Centre houses residence programme and provides a

unique point of access to Kharkiv’s rich, multifaceted –and largely unknown- visual arts’ culture.

YermilovCentre is a perfect opportunity to:

- Discover, first-hand, one of Ukraine’s largest visual arts’ communities.

- Research and admire constructivist and soviet modernism architecture (Derzhprom), one of

Kharkiv’s main attractions (Vasyl Yermilov, Borys Kosarev were both born here).

- Research unique phenomenon of worldwide acclaimed Kharkiv school of photography (Boris

Mikhailov, Sergey Bratkov, Yuriy Rupin, Roman Pyatkovka, Shilo Group)

- Visits local museums (Kharkiv National Art Museum, Kharkiv Historical Museum, Kharkiv

Municipal Art Gallery, etc.) and artist studios (Pavel Makov, Artem Volokitin, Tatyana

Malinovskaya, Gamlet Zinkivskyi, Roman Minin etc.)

Who: YermilovCentre’s residency programme for 2017 is entitled "Perceived identities: to have

or to be." They’re looking for artists working in projects that involve local communities/city

spaces (as an option - through media and online media) More information on the links below.

When: mid-August-September 2017

More about the programme/Kharkiv:

http://yermilovcentre.org/

http://yermilovcentre.org/2017/05/19/yermilovtsentr-ogoloshuye-vidkritij-konkurs-na-uchast-u-

litnij-mistets-kij-rezidentsiyi/

https://www.facebook.com/YermilovCentre

http://vasa-project.com/gallery/ukraine-1/

https://www.frieze.com/article/boris-mikhailov

http://shilo-group.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derzhprom

2) Kharkiv Municipal Art Gallery (Kharkiv)

Kharkiv’s Municipal Gallery is one of the first galleries in Ukraine with municipal status. It was

founded in 1996 and since then it has become one of Kharkiv’s cultural hubs, playing a key role

in nurturing and promoting the work of new artists, and in expanding the city/region’s

international links. The Gallery houses a residence programme attached to its NonStopMedia

Festival, and newly inaugurated Performance nights (since 2016) which provides a unique point

of access to Kharkiv’s rich, multifaceted –and largely unknown- visual arts’ culture.

This programme is a perfect opportunity to:

- Discover, first-hand, one of Ukraine’s largest visual arts’ communities.

- Research and admire constructivist and soviet modernism architecture (Derzhprom), one of

Kharkiv’s main attractions (Vasyl Yermilov, Borys Kosarev were both born here).

- Research unique phenomenon of worldwide acclaimed Kharkiv school of photography (Boris

Mikhailov, Sergey Bratkov, Yuriy Rupin, Roman Pyatkovka, Shilo Group)

- Visits local museums (Kharkiv National Art Museum, Kharkiv Historical Museum, Kharkiv

Municipal Art Gallery, etc.) and artist studios (Pavel Makov, Artem Volokitin, Tatyana

Malinovskaya, Gamlet Zinkivskyi, Roman Minin etc.)

Who: Kharkiv Municipal Art Gallery are particularly interested in performance artists with an

interest in collective action, so that their piece(s) can be performed during the Performance

night which will take place for the second time (first one was in 2016), which is organised in the

framework of Curatorial intensive this year, curated and supervised by the Kharkiv Municipal Art

Gallery team.

When: August-September 2017

More about the programme/Kharkiv:

http://www.mgallery.kharkov.ua/

http://mgallery.kharkov.ua/old/nonstop-e.htm

http://mgallery.kharkov.ua/ru/nonstopmedia2016.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv

http://vasa-project.com/gallery/ukraine-1/

https://www.frieze.com/article/boris-mikhailov

3) Soshenko 33 Art Studios (Kyiv) This old dacha, once property of the Ukrainian leg of the KGB, became part of the National Academy of Art’s network of postgraduate studios in the 60s. It has since then been perceived an island of artistic freedom and experimentation (particularly within the rigid and hierarchical Soviet Kyiv’s artistic scene). Today, Soshenko Studios has become one of the important centres of Kyiv’s emerging artistic community. The studios are now part of a modernising exercise of Kyiv’s National Academy of Arts educational system, which aims to become an innovation in the sphere of arts academic studies in Ukraine. The residence programme will be fully tailored to the artist’s particular needs and interests, but it will include a special focus Kyiv’s art scene.

Soshenko 33 Art Studios is a perfect opportunity to: - Engage with Kyiv’s underground arts’ scene and understand how arts education works in Ukraine; - Visit major museums and artist studios in Kyiv: Kyiv National Art Museum, Historical Museum of Ukraine, PinchukArtCentre, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Ya Gallery, Vozdvizhenka Art House, Karas Gallery, Center Visual Culture etc. - Research and plunge into the process of the classical academic education (painting, sculpture, graphics) with an addition of new experimental media and approaches

Who: the hosts are interested in working with artists engaged in participatory practices, development of local communities, social activism, urbanism, interested in interaction with art students(workshop, artist-talks), articulating issues and challenges of formal/non-formal education, self-education within Arts (academic and independent practices).

When: September-October 2017

More about this programme: http://soshenko33.tumblr.com/ https://www.facebook.com/soshenka/?fref=ts http://vcrc.org.ua/en/ http://theschoolofkyiv.org/events/652/artists-studios-at-33-soshenko-street-project-opening http://namu.kiev.ua/en.html (Kyiv) http://pinchukartcentre.org/en/ (Kyiv)

4) IZOLYATSIA. Platform for Cultural Initiatives (Kyiv)

IZOLYATSIA is a cultural platform founded in 2010 on the territory of a former insulation

materials factory in Donetsk, Ukraine, and relocated to Kyiv in June 2014 after the military

occupation of its premises. The institution’s mission is to inspire positive change in Ukraine by

using culture as an instrument. IZOLYATSIA has three intertwined directions of activity: art,

education, and projects geared at activating Ukraine’s creative sector.

Since 2010, IZOLYATSIA has carried out over forty large-scale projects, which included

international art exhibitions, residencies, festivals, a media camp, and scores of other cultural

events. Artist-in-residence programmes are the core of the platform’s activities: over the years,

IZOLYATSIA has held art residencies in Ukraine, hosting individual artists, initiating

multidisciplinary research and curatorial residencies as well as facilitated Ukrainian art

professionals’ residencies at the partnering institutions abroad, among which Villa Arson (Nice),

Delfina Foundation (London), AV Festival (Newcastle upon Tyne), and others.

IZOLYATSIA is a perfect opportunity to:

- Discover, first-hand, one of Ukraine’s largest contemporary art institutions.

- Access the research base of the Donbas Studies project.

- Benefit from the studios at the IZONE Creative Community: photo lab, fab lab, etching room,

silkscreen studio, and more.

- Share your skills and experience with the local community of ca. 70 creatives based at IZONE.

- Access IZOLYATSIA’s own network of Ukrainian and international art institutions.

- Visit the studios of emerging artists across Ukraine to get an insider’s grasp of the local art

scene.

- Get full access to the database of more than 50 young Ukrainian artists – participants of the

Art Wednesday project by IZOLYATSIA.

Who: Given the institutional profile and the general socio-political context in Ukraine,

IZOLYATSIA is interested in socially and politically engaged art practices, activism, urbanism,

public art and community-based art as well as topic of politics and food. Artists employing

different media to investigate post-industrial regeneration, creative economy, complex socio-

political matters of migration and displacement, contested histories and geopolitical issues, are

given preference to.

When: September-October 2017

More about the institution:

https://izolyatsia.org/en

facebook.com/izolyatsia twitter.com/izolyatsia vimeo.com/izolyatsia instagram.com/izolyatsia